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Posted February 3, 2017 08:19 pm - Updated February 12, 2017 01:37 pm

Letter: Evaluate present, not past

In response to a letter criticizing Kathleen Parker’s column, I agree that Donald Trump is now the president of the United States, by winning a substantial number of votes and thereby securing the Electoral College. However, I disagree with the letter writer that the way to begin evaluating the beginning of the president’s term is to fill said letter with criticisms of Hillary Clinton.

The campaign is over! So let’s focus on President Trump’s initial description of our country as “carnage,” his deep concerns that there were more persons at his inauguration than appeared to the cameras, statement (while at the CIA) that he has been on the cover of Time magazine in a record-setting way, that the U.S. will build a wall across its southern border with Mexico (2,000 miles?), that we should or could “take the oil” from Middle East countries (where we have U.S. troops embedded), that 3-5 million people voted illegally and that is why he lost the popular vote, had a close adviser talk about “alternative facts,” and had the same advisor say that the president would not make public his tax returns, period.

Most recently, the president has suggested that the U.S. might reintroduce torture as a military strategy, and he has not divested of any of his business holdings in the U.S. or around the world. Let us begin to evaluate the present, not the past.